Black Artists Struggle To Dance

REE TO DANCE," a
richly resonant new documentary from PBS, shows how black dance artists
honor their heritage and transform their responses to society into
glorious dancing. It also challenges the conventional wisdom that modern
dance was a creation of white choreographers.

One of its revelations is the heartbreaking correspondence between Edna
Guy and Ruth St. Denis. Guy, a black teenager ardently dedicated to dance,
appeals to "Miss Ruth," icon of "aesthetic dancing," for advice on how she
can become an artist. St. Denis, who begins her letters "Dear Girlie," at
first denies Guy access to classes at the Denishawn school, but later, in
1924, opens the doors.

Instead of graduating into the company like the other girls, however,
Guy is relegated to the job of seamstress. Discouraged, she creates dances
with her friends to Negro spirituals and gets ousted from the company
altogether. On the rebound, Guy immerses herself in the Harlem Renaissance
and eventually invites Katherine Dunham to perform in New York in 1936,
becoming a key link in the history of blacks in dance.

A sense of freedom gained through struggle permeates the dancing on the
screen as well as the words of the performers interviewed in "Free to
Dance," which will be shown as part of WNET's "Dance in America" series
next Sunday. From Ms. Dunham, the ground-breaking dancer and
anthropologist, to the Cunningham-influenced Gus Solomons Jr., we see the
wide array of choices that black choreographers have made about how -- or
whether -- to draw on their cultural heritage.

The connection of dance to daily life is kept in focus throughout the
three-hour program. Ms. Dunham says of her research in the Caribbean, "I
could not learn the dances without knowing the people." Just as Ms. Dunham
participated in spirit-possession rituals in Haiti, Pearl Primus picked
cotton in Alabama. Modern dance is not something remote and fantastical
but connected to real lives, from the chain gangs of Donald McKayle's
"Rainbow Round My Shoulder" (1959) to the domestic worker portrayed in
Alvin Ailey's "Cry" (1970) to the young people dancing in clubs in Talley
Beatty's "Stack Up" (1982).

The communal spirit of the circle, as seen in the clapping and stomping
ring-shouts of plantation dances and the Black Bottom of the 1920's,
threads through the evening. Juxtapositions between the old and the new
affect us on a subliminal level. Bill T. Jones, dancing his 1987 solo
"Etudes," repeats a twisting movement, body low, arms swaying side to side
in response to swiveling hips -- a lyrical version of the twist.

Similar motions surface in the footage of ring-shouts of former slaves
and the movements of the West African choreographer Asadata Dafora in the
1930's. Moments like these reinforce the idea of an "African cultural
continuum" set forth by the art historian Richard Powell.

For a pure dance high, there is Primus's forceful amalgam of African
and modern dance accompanied by African drummers, Eleo Pomare's alarming
portrayal of a junkie with the shakes in "Blues for the Jungle" (1966),
Blondell Cummings's feisty gesturing in a television adaptation of
"Chicken Soup" (1988) and Mr. McKayle's and Ron Brown's individual
versions of the rumba, seen in a rehearsal of their collaboration,
"Children of the Passage" (1998). Other gems are clips of the young Alvin
Ailey with Carmen de Lavallade in a duet by Lester Horton; Mr. Jones and
Arnie Zane giddily bouncing off each other's energy; Gary Harris's
spiraling arms and percussive chest in a reconstruction of Dafora's
"Ostrich Dance" (1932); Tommy Gomez (unidentified in the film) coiling
fiercely in Ms. Dunham's "Shango" (1945); and Maia Claire Garrison's tough
pelvic moves in Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's "Batty Moves" (1995). The
documentary also includes stirring clips from Talley Beatty, Garth Fagan
and Ulysses Dove.

Missing are black dancers who did not choreograph but who left their
marks. Who could forget Mary Hinkson, who brought her etched lines and
womanly power to Martha Graham's roles? Or Carolyn Adams, who infused Paul
Taylor's dances with a joyous buoyancy over a 20-year period? What was
their influence on the white choreographers they danced for? And what
about Syvilla Fort (seen fleetingly in a "Stormy Weather" excerpt), the
Dunham principal who led her thriving school? Also missing are many of the
black choreographers who have emerged in the last 10 or 15 years. Another
frustration for the curious: some of the footage is not identified.

But these are quibbles. The result of a 10- year project initiated by
Gerald Myers of American Dance Festival, "Free to Dance" is a gift to
modern dance and a moving addition to the field of cultural studies. By
showing a glimpse of the mighty contributions of black choreographers, the
program, produced and directed by Madison Lacy, questions the accepted
notion that modern dance was launched by the four white "pioneers" Martha
Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Hanya Holm. Certainly
Katherine Dunham and perhaps Pearl Primus could be added to that list of
elders. Anyone interested in dance as an art will savor every minute of
this ambitious and illuminating
program.